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I diagree Drew. I think strategists have always had a place at the top of military ranks. And lets be honest here, a cyber warrior is just a stragist with deep background knowledge of computer architecture. It's all about understanding your target, your own capabilities and the enviorment of today. The government needs to capitalize on motivated individuals, and capture talent before it leaks out to decentralized hacker cells. Even there, the government should reach out to such cells and work with them rather than against them. These are the locations that future threats will emerge from, these are the targets we need to win on our side today, or at the least keep a close eye on. These are not all malicious individuals, just like all gun enthusiast are not malicious killers. These people are specialists, they are strategists, they are the next generation of highly skilled soliders. These information warriors will control future global influence to come, subtly without invoking dangerous physical reprecusions. As a wise strategist once put, "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. "

You might as well ask "how do we retain women, despite a negative culture". Or, "how do we retain smart people, despite an anti-intellectual culture".

Like it or not, the knuckle-dragging door kickers run the Army, despite a diminishing need for their ilk in foreseeable future conflicts, and the relative ease in which we can generate, as a nation, an army of neanderthal misogynists/misanthropes. Traditional combat troops are a dime a dozen, frankly. Specialized troops are hard to find, yet the Army gleefully, as a culture, throws roadblock after roadblock in their way to staying in, while they reward the 50 IQ dude who can PT and jump out of an airplane (a dubious skill with extremely limited military application) with praise and promotion.

It's not even military prowess that's in question. I've got a huge IQ, yet I can do all sorts of military tasks with alacrity. Except one. And that is to fit in socially with a bunch of military morons. And getting promoted/getting along is ONLY about fitting in socially.

Until the military fixes the "birds of a feather" issue, leaders with Dog-sized IQs will continue to be described as "good guys" and get promoted, and the odd-balls who like war-games and play in dark rooms with computers will get harassed, passed over and pushed out of the army to a place where they will take money instead of other less tangible rewards.